Gov. Chris Christie is getting rave reviews today for his performance at the National Republican Convention, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he did a huge amount of good for the three most important people in his life – he, himself, and him.

Whether he did any good for Mitt Romney is less certain (and when the cameras cut to Mr. Romney in the audience, the look on his face, at times, suggested that he may have been wondering the same thing.)

The New Jersey governor was, as advertised, energetic, and combative, and played right to the heart of his constituency – err, I mean Mr. Romney’s constituency – on the far right of the Republican Party. But his speech sound more like a stump speech for himself, for re-election or for some federal office, than the keynote speech at the nominating convention for another politician.
By my count, Mr. Christie used the word “Romney” six times in his address. He used the word “I” 30 times, plus a couple of “me’s” and “my’s” tossed in for seasoning. He also used the word “truth” nine times, which I count as a misstep. The more a politician says he is speaking the truth, the less likely that is.

Mr. Christie said he was at the convention to speak some hard truths, but if he spoke them, I missed them. I don’t, by the way, count his proclamation that “our ideas are right for America and their ideas have failed America.”

He said he was willing to tell the truth about Medicare and other entitlement programs, but he never said what the truth was, which is that the Republicans want to slowly but surely dry up Medicare as the reliable insurance program for America’s seniors.

He certainly did not tell the full, hard truth about his own governorship, which was the main theme of his speech. Mr. Christie has balanced his state budget, which he was required to do by law, and he used fewer accounting gimmicks than his predecessors. But he still used some pretty big ones, like putting off contributions to pension funds. He cut spending, on the backs of lower- and middle-class people, whose tax credits he erased and whose bus and train fares he raised soon after taking office.

The oddest moment was at the end, when he seemed to forget that he is a supporting player in the campaign. “If you’re willing to stand up with me for America’s future, I will stand up with you,” he said. “If you’re willing to fight with me for Mitt Romney, I will fight with you. If you’re willing to hear the truth about the hard road ahead, and the rewards for America that truth will bear, I’m here to begin with you this new era of truth-telling.”